Category Archives: Survival

An immigrant is a person who leaves his or her home country to work, study or live in a new country. Sometimes people are immigrants to get an education that is not available in their home country. Sometimes people immigrate to do a particular job or to live in a country whose customs and laws are different than their home country.

A special kind of immigrant is a refugee. Their reasons for leaving their home country are different. A refugee is a person who is fleeing his or her home country to escape danger, like a war, or to escape persecution. Persecution is being hurt based on your race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular group or having a particular political opinion. The United States welcomes many immigrants each year to live and work and study, as well as giving refuge to people who have fled their home country for their own safety.

The Journey is a story that will help you understand what it is like to have to leave everything you know behind to start over somewhere new. Below are more books written by, or about, refugees. By reading these books you can live for just a little while, in their experience. I did not grow up afraid. I did not have to worry about living in a war zone, being hurt or being persecuted. I also didn’t want to think about having to move and change schools, let alone thinking about starting a whole new life somewhere and having to learn a new language and new customs and meet all new people. I don’t know what that’s like because I never had to do it. These stories help me see the challenges that refugees face starting a new life – kids facing anxiety and fear and danger with courage. Sometimes you meet new friends in person. Sometimes you meet them in books. Here are some kids I think you will be proud to know.

Non-Fiction:

Adrift at Sea: a Vietnamese Boy’s Story of Survival – Tuan and his family survive bullets, a broken motor, and a leaking boat in the long days they spend at sea after fleeing Vietnam. A true story as told to the author by Tuan Ho. Includes family photographs and a historical note about the Vietnamese crisis.

Immigrants and Refugees – Describes current patterns of migration around the world, including the causes and effects of immigration and emigration.

Out of Iraq Refugees’ Stories in Words, Paintings & Music – Out of Iraq tells the stories of a number of Iraqi refugee families that have made Syria their home over the 5 years since the war in Iraq began. This book tells the stories of their flight from Iraq, the memories of home in the ‘good old days’ and their continued courage living as refugees.

A Song for Cambodia – A biography of Arn Chorn-Pond who, as a young boy in 1970s Cambodia, survived the Khmer Rouge killing fields because of his skill on the khim, a traditional instrument, and later went on to help heal others and revive Cambodian music and culture.

Stories:

Teacup – A boy travels across the sea in a rowboat in search of a new home, making a journey that is long and difficult–but also filled with beauty and hope.

Calling the Water Drum – A young boy loses both parents as they attempt to flee Haiti for a better life, and afterward is only able to process his grief and communicate with the outside world through playing the drums.

Four Feet Two Sandals – Two young Afghani girls living in a refugee camp in Pakistan share a precious pair of sandals brought by relief workers.

The Color of Home – Hassan, newly-arrived in the United States and feeling homesick, paints a picture at school that shows his old home in Somalia as well as the reason his family had to leave.

How I Learned Geography – As he spends hours studying his father’s world map, a young boy escapes the hunger and misery of refugee life. Based on the author’s childhood in Kazakhstan, where he lived as a Polish refugee during World War II. Newbery Honor Book

When I Get Older – A Somali-Canadian poet, rapper, singer and songwriter tells his own story about leaving war-torn Somalia as a child, growing up in Canada and creating a hit song that touched millions of people around the world with its powerful message of hope.

Oskar and the Eight Blessings – A young Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany arrives in New York City on the seventh night of Hanukkah and receives small acts of kindness while exploring the city.

The Journey – What is it like to have to leave everything behind and travel many miles to somewhere unfamiliar and strange? A mother and is two brothers away to Miami via the Pedro Pan operation. But when the boys get to Miami, they are thrust into a world where bullies seem to run rampant and it’s not always clear how best to protect themselves.

Refuge – A retelling of the nativity story from a perspective emphasizing the struggle of Mary and Joseph as refugee.

Stepping Stones – In this picture book, a young girl and her family are forced to flee their village to escape the civil war that has engulfed Syria and make their way toward freedom in Europe.

Bamboo People – Two Burmese boys, one a Karenni refugee and the other the son of an imprisoned Burmese doctor, meet in the jungle and in order to survive they must learn to trust each other. Young Hoosier Book Award, 2012-2013, 6-8 Nominee.

Home of the Brave – Kek, an African refugee, is confronted by many strange things at the Minneapolis home of his aunt and cousin, as well as in his fifth grade classroom, and longs for his missing mother, but finds comfort in the company of a cow and her owner. Young Hoosier Book Award, 2009-2010, 6-8 Nominee.

Inside Out and Back Again – Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama. National Book Award Winner; Young Hoosier Book Award, 2013-2014, 4-6 Nominee; Newbery Honor Book

A Long Walk to Water – When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, eleven-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan. Young Hoosier Book Award, 2012-2013, 6-8 Nominee.

The Only Road – Twelve-year-old Jaime makes the treacherous journey from his home in Guatemala to his older brother in New Mexico after his cousin is murdered by a drug cartel.

The Red Pencil – After her tribal village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, must flee to safety at a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the friendship and encouragement of a wise elder.

Serafina’s Promise – In a poor village outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Serafina works hard to help her family, but dreams of going to school and becoming a doctor–then the earthquake hits and Serafina must summon all her courage to find her father and still get medicine for her sick baby brother as she promised. Young Hoosier Book Award, 2016-2017, 4-6 Nominee.

Shooting Kabul – Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind. Cybil Award for Middle Grade Nomination 2010.

School is almost out and the temperature is heating up! It is a perfect time to fill you pack with an adventure novel or two and set out into the great outdoors. Find a great park near you using Indy Park’s fun finder.

Books:

Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss – Shipwrecked on an isolated island in the early nineteenth century, a Swiss couple and their four sons rely upon their ingenuity and nature’s providence to survive in their “New Switzerland.”

Nature Girl by Jane Kelley – Forced to spend the summer with her family in rural Vermont, eleven-year-old Megan, a rebellious, immature urbanite gains self-confidence and maturity as she and her dog survive being lost on the Appalachian Trail.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George – While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

Island by Gordon Korman – Six kids, Nick, J.J., Will, Lyssa, Charla, and Ian, are thrown together against their will on a small boat that will make a one-month journey on the Pacific Ocean. They have all been sent for different reasons. Luke is taking his only choice besides being sent to a juvenile detention facility for a crime he didn’t commit. Will and Lyssa are quarreling siblings sent by their parents, who hope the trip will teach them to get along better. J.J. was sent by a movie-star father after he pulled one too many pranks. Ian’s parents hoped to cure him of his TV addiction. Charla was sent because she was having an athletic “burnout.” But these six totally different kids have to learn to work together to survive a vicious storm and a shipwreck that leaves them stranded in the middle of the ocean with no food, no water, and almost no hope for survival.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Island of the Blue Dolphins – Records the courage and self-reliance of an Indian girl who lived alone for eighteen years on an isolated island off the California coast when her tribe emigrated and she was left behind.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen – After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents’ divorce.

Like Bug Juice on a Burger by Julie Sternberg – As the days go on, nine-year-old Eleanor realizes that maybe being at summer camp isn’t so bad after all, and is full of special surprises.

Spy Camp by Stuart Gibbs – As almost thirteen-year-old Ben, a student at the CIA’s academy for future intelligence agents, prepares to go to spy summer camp, he receives a death threat from the evil organization SPYDER.

If all the reading about outdoor adventures leaves you wanting to have an adventure of your own, check out the book Camp Out! , it is full of tips and guides for a successful camping experience. You will also want to check out Camp Granada for sing-along camp songs!

Camp Granada by Frané Lessac -Presents the lyrics for an assortment of popular camp songs, such as “Rise and Shine,” “The Peanut Song,” “Do Your Ears Hang Low,” “This Land Is Your Land,” and “Kum Ba Yah.”

When you’re talking survival you’re talking many different things. Can you read a map? Can you use a compass? Could you find food in the woods? How about bears…do you know how to keep one from attacking you? You live in Indiana, do you know how to keep yourself safe during tornadoes? These books will show you all the skills you need to survive all kinds of anxious situations. You can even learn how to protect yourself from piranhas…not a likely attack…but good to know!

Websites

Books

And while you’re getting your own skills up to par try some of these survival stories that put characters to the test. Put yourself in their place. Could YOU do it? For me…dangling from rock outcroppings, dodging poisonous lizards, eating spiders…no! Living in the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse…yes!

A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.

“I picked MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN in honor of the author, Jean Craighead George, who passed away recently at the age of 92. This is the story of Sam Gribley, one of eleven children, who is tired of living with his large family. He decides to live on his own in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York for a year. He finds a hollowed out tree and makes it his home. His only company is a falcon and a weasel. It is a great story of Sam’s courage and his struggle to survive. This is the first in a trilogy that includes On the Far Side of the Mountain and Frightful’s Mountain.”

After setting off from the island where he has been leading a solitary existence, thirteen-year-old Martin discovers a village with other children who have been living similarly without any adults, since the grown-ups have all been spirited away. Author: Aaron Starmer

“Martin lives on a lonely island with his eccentric father, who insists on staying apart from society to work on his “machine”. Martin has very little contact with other people, not even with the summer visitors to the island, knowing about the rest of the world only from books.

One day Martin’s father goes off to get the last part for the machine and never returns. When the summer people don’t return either, Martin rows to the mainland and discovers that everyone in the world has disappeared, except for about 30 children. These children from all over the United States have mysteriously found their way to a town they have named Xibalba. There they build a small attempt at community while trying to figure out where everyone went. Things get much stranger after Martin arrives.
This is a tense, gripping novel, in the tradition of other child-centered societies like Lord of the Flies and Ender’s Game, flavored by a Stephen King-like eeriness, but with original characters and twists. Questions are answered by the end, but not in ways that readers will predict. 5th-8th grade level.”